Page 15 of Ash and Feather

“What worked?” I asked, looking over my shoulder as she followed me into the room.

“Earlier today, she asked me for something to keep the nightmares at bay. So I gave her a balam dust concoction.”

A lead weight settled in my gut at the wordnightmares. They weren’t a new occurrence—the first weeks after she’d gained her divine powers had been full of such horrors—but I didn’t realize she’d still been having them. I’d been a bit…preoccupied lately.

And, knowing her, she’d done everything she could to keep me from seeing her struggle.

Rieta went to the desk, gathering up a few scraps of parchment that had fallen to the floor at Karys’s feet. Notes she’d been taking; I recognized her small, painstakingly neat handwriting even at a distant glance.

“Likely the first sound sleep she’s had in weeks,” Rieta said, quieter.

The weight in my stomach sank deeper.

“I got the concoction from the Healing God. Told him I needed it for myself, so don’t worry—he and the rest of the Stone Court don’t know that anything’s plaguing her. She wouldn’t want them to know what she was going through, I suspect.”

“No. She wouldn’t.” I moved closer to the desk, taking care to step lightly and not wake her. My gaze fell to her right hand, the only part of her that remained tense under the balam’s influence; a pen was clenched in it, its sharp tip pointing upward as though she’d fallen asleep prepared to brandish it against any nightmares that might slip through the Healing God’s potion.

More to myself than Rieta, I said, “I wish I knew how to make these nightmares stop permanently.”

“Stop?” she repeated with a sniff. “My dear, the kinds of things she’s been through will never juststop. Some hurts echo on indefinitely, in nightmare form or otherwise. Quieter after a time, maybe, but still there, just waiting for some new thing to bounce off and amplify themselves by. I told her the same thing.” She sighed wistfully, her warm brown eyes crinkling at the edges as she focused them on Karys. “But she’s strong—she’ll push through whatever hurt there is to push through, don’t you worry.”

These last words brought little comfort, but I nodded all the same; I’d learned long ago not to argue with this woman who had practically raised me.

“Speaking of hurts that echo…” Rieta began, stacking Karys’s notes into a neat pile and adding them to the organized shelves as she spoke, “I accidentally overheard some of your conversations in here earlier.”

“Accidentallyoverheard?” I huffed out a laugh, knowing better. “Or eavesdropped on them?”

“Either way,” she said with a shrug. “I would have known something was bothering you even if I hadn’t heard a thing.”

Again, there was no point in arguing.

“You’re thinking of leaving, aren’t you?” Rieta asked, casually, still busying herself with the piles of notes. “You’re worried about your brother.”

“It’s my job to be concerned for human-kind,” I said evenly. “Especially their leaders.”

“I’m rather sure this concern has little to do with your godly obligations.” She pinned me with the same sort of look she used to give when scolding me for not caring enough about my school lessons. “Nothing wrong with wanting to see your brother.”

“I’d hardly consider us true siblings at this point.” Karys stirred, burrowing her face more completely into her folded arms, and I lowered my voice as I added, “I am not the little brother I once was, trailing like some lost little puppy on the heels of the future king.”

“No, you’re not. But you’ll forgive an old woman and her poor eyesight, won’t you? Sometimes I blink, and I still catch a glimpse of that little princeling in the corner of my vision.” Rieta’s tone had taken on the pensive, wistful quality it sometimes did when she was recalling our past life in the mortal realm.

I was not fond of that tone.

I exhaled a slow, concentrated breath, as though I could expel all the memories of my old life if I just focused hard enough.

Unsurprisingly, this didn’t work.

There was no forgetting where I’d come from—and no denying that I needed to go back there, sooner rather than later.

Glancing at Rieta, I said, “I suppose you were also eavesdropping when I told Karys it would be too dangerous for her to visit the mortal realm alongside me.”

“I heard no part of that conversation.” She coughed. “But I suspected you’d feel that way.”

“I’m not being unreasonable.”

“No.”

I wasn’t sure which one of us I was trying to convince more. “If she were to lose control of her magic…” Violent images ofsmoke and ash and flame exploded in my mind—a still-too-clear memory of Ederis burning. I shoved it down as best I could. “She would never forgive herself, and I won’t risk her suffering or having to carry such a weight if I can help it.”

---